Today we have an environmentalist theme with a little science and religion and art tossed in. I saw one video in an online magazine today — an animated version of a Louis CK riff on environmentalism and religion. Then I saw one through facebook, also with an environmentalist theme. I think that viewed together, the whole is even a little more than the sum of both quite enjoyable parts.

This is your Weekend Open Thread. Talk about this or anything else you’d like, within broad bounds of decency and decorum.

And this is a very special brea drip — read about it here but don’t watch it on Slate unless you want to suffer through Walmart’s obnoxious recent ad campaign — after which you’ll get the weekly OC Register Dearthwatch.

And here’s the Dearthwatch! Things mostly seem to be leveling off. It was tempting to leave ours up so as in be able to include what is, for us, quite a busy day.

About Greg Diamond

Somewhat verbose worker's rights and government accountability attorney, residing in northwest Brea. General Counsel of CATER, the Coalition of Anaheim Taxpayers for Economic Responsibility, a non-partisan group of people sick of local corruption.
Deposed as Northern Vice Chair of DPOC in April 2014 when his anti-corruption and pro-consumer work in Anaheim infuriated the Building Trades and Teamsters in spring 2014, who then worked with the lawless and power-mad DPOC Chair to eliminate his internal oversight.
Occasionally runs for office to challenge some nasty incumbent who would otherwise run unopposed. (Someday he might pick a fight with the intent to win rather than just dent someone. You'll know it when you see it.) He got 45% of the vote against Bob Huff for State Senate in 2012 and in 2014 became the first attorney to challenge OCDA Tony Rackauckas since 2002.
None of his pre-putsch writings ever spoke for the Democratic Party at the local, county, state, national, or galactic level, nor do they now.
A family member co-owns a business offering campaign treasurer services to Democratic candidates and the odd independent. He is very proud of her. He doesn't directly profit from her work and it doesn't affect his coverage. (He does not always favor her clients, though she might hesitate to take one that he truly hated.)
He does advise some local campaigns informally and (so far) without compensation. (If that last bit changes, he will declare the interest.)

A landmark federal study on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, shows no evidence that chemicals from the natural gas drilling process moved up to contaminate drinking water aquifers at a western Pennsylvania drilling site, the Department of Energy told The Associated Press.

After a year of monitoring, the researchers found that the chemical-laced fluids used to free gas trapped deep below the surface stayed thousands of feet below the shallower areas that supply drinking water, geologist Richard Hammack said.

Urbina’s piece also echoes the unsubstantiated notion (popularized by this year’s Oscar-nominated documentary “Gasland”) that fracking somehow leaks natural gas into drinking water aquifers. After investigating the particular incident featured in the film in which a Colorado resident ignites his tap water with a small flame, scientists at the Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission concluded: “There are no indications of any oil- and gas-related impacts to your water well … Methane gas is common in water wells in Colorado. It occurs naturally … as a gas in coal or black shale seams [and] as a byproduct of the decay of organic matter.”
Forbes –

Is hydraulic fracturing — used for more than 60 years to produce oil and natural gas — safe?

The “safe fracking” question has been asked and answered many times over by government regulators, scientists and other technical experts, and they have concluded that hydraulic fracturing is a fundamentally safe technology. Interior secretaries and EPA heads have repeatedly said that fracking can be done, and is being done, so that it doesn’t present environmental or public health problems.
LA Times –

“Critics charged last summer that a University of Texas (UT), Austin, report—which examined the human health and environmental implications of fracking—was tilted in favor of the gas industry. And they revealed that its principal manager—former U.S. Geological Survey chief Charles Groat—had an undisclosed financial stake in a gas exploration company. Now, a group commissioned by the university has released a scathing review of the fracking report.”

More recently, Stanford University geophysicist Mark Zoback, who’s also served as an advisor to the Obama administration, confirmed that fluids used in hydraulic fracturing “have not contaminated any water supply,” and with more than a mile of rock separating deep shale formations and shallow drinking water aquifers, “it is very unlikely they could.” In California, it is worth noting, more than 80% of hydraulic fracturing occurs in parts of Kern County where there is no potable groundwater
LA Times –

Mark Zoback, a geophysics professor at Stanford and senior advisor to Baker Hughes, Inc., a Houston-based oilfield services company engaged in hydraulic fracturing. Zoback is chair of GeoMechanics International, a consulting firm that advises on various oil and gas drilling problems and that was acquired by Baker Hughes in 2008.

What the city did made that unlikely to succeed — quite intentionally, in my opinion. They intentionally constructed their charter amendment to be one that would be incompatible with a citizen initiative, meaning that only the one that got more votes would be enacted. The judge should either re-form it so that it’s not incompatible with a voter-residency charter amendment or just toss it off the ballot entirely.

The only difference between the city councils charter amendment and your recommendation is whether the districts are elected at large or by district only.

Even after reading so many words you wrote your argument boils down to one thing. “Your way is better than their way”, in my opinion that is a weak an argument.

For those that think voting “district only” is better the “at large” then they should put that single issue on the ballot.

Greg Diamond

Posted July 22, 2013 at 5:21 PM

Well, yeah — and the only difference between water and hydrogen peroxide in one additional oxygen atom. And my argument on which one of them to drink could, I suppose, be boiled down to “it’s better to drink water than hydrogen peroxide.”

You know that there are legal requirements at issue here, right?

You are correctly, though, that a change to voter-residency districts should be on the ballot. I think that it should be on the ballot separately from a change to candidate-residency districts — and in such a way that the two potential changes do not conflict.

Did I mention to you, Ricardo, that I got Gabriel and Jose discussing education policy, in a friendly way, for like half an hour, after the police roundtable last night? Thought you would like that, as a kumbayah kinda guy.

Hey, what did you mean calling us bloggers babosos the other day? Were you actually insulting me and Greg?

Babosos? What babosos? Remember the great Bob Marley :” who the cap fit, let them wear it…” I re-appropriated this word (the term re-appropriate is defined in another thread…) baboso from Gabe. He used it in the thread that made the OJB explode with irate parents…I hope I am not opening a can of worms again….anyway, I am glad that GSR and Dr M spent time talking about boring stuff, after all the desmadre created around Dr Baeza. BTW we may have our own OC “Stand and Deliver” Jaime Escalante in Dr Baeza. Who would be our “vendido” Edgar J Olmos? It has to be a celebrity…chingado, I’d better stop…

You see Vern, you are not only a “stalker” but also an “agent provocateur”, according to the NSA. They have all your phone calls you are making from the OCTD buses. I hope you carry plastic bags with you, as Gustavo is keeping track of your pukes…

The biggest babosadas you have done was to remove the tag about Cunningham in the Mahoney article. That is why I am the biggest defender of Gustavo, he has the huevos to rub it in his face, even in Dan Chmielewski’s blog, that Cunningham outed sex-abuse victims by releasing their names online. On top of this, you shook hands with him…ouch! You see I am not a kumbayah kinda guy all the time…

“Pisco is a colorless or yellowish-to-amber colored grape brandy produced in winemaking regions of Peru and Chile.” Peruvians and Chileans fought a war in 1879, Peru lost territory to Chile, and then they have been fighting about who produces the best Pisco. The dispute about the territories was taken to The Hague international tribune, a verdict is expected soon, and may not be accepted by one of these countries. I hope that this does not trigger another war.

The first experimental use of hydraulic fracturing was in 1947, and the first commercially successful applications were in 1949. As of 2010, it was estimated that 60% of all new oil and gas wells worldwide were being hydraulically fractured. As of 2012, 2.5 million hydraulic fracturing jobs have been performed on oil and gas wells worldwide, more than one million of them in the United States.
Wiki –

One million frack jobs in the US and not one of them can you point to as having had devastating consequences to people or the environment.

Google “fracking ruined my property” and hundreds of devastating stories come up. The drilling companies know this technique ruins water wells of the locals, and they start bringing in the drinking water trucks while their lawyers try to get them to sign nondisclosures.

A lot of them have taken the money to keep their mouths shut, but more and more are fighting back.

With the new petroleum fields discovered up in the Central Valley, for the first time in 60 years, California may be moving to pass a law to regulate the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing.

This has DEVASTATING results if done wrong, and we all know that the oil companies make big mistakes.

Anon, please point out where I rant about religion? If you mean I want religion out of politics and my bedroom and you consider that a rant…if you want to hear a rant, try tuning into Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh… oh, yes they see themselves as ‘good’ Christians and have very deep thoughts daily.

The Obama appointee implicated in the IRS targeting scandal met with President Obama in the White House two days before offering his colleagues a new set of advice on how to scrutinize tea party and conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.

IRS chief counsel William Wilkins, who was named in House Oversight testimony by retiring IRS agent Carter Hull as one of his supervisors in the improper targeting of conservative groups, met with Obama in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on April 23, 2012. Wilkins’ boss, then-IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman, visited the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on April 24, 2012, according to White House visitor logs.

On April 25, 2012, Wilkins’ office sent the exempt organizations determinations unit “additional comments on the draft guidance” for approving or denying tea party tax-exempt applications, according to the IRS inspector general’s report.
Daily Caller –

Yesterday I stopped by the Flipboard offices in Palo Alto. Flipboard is just one of so many forward-thinking California companies, and I love using their app to follow the latest news and put together magazines on the issues that matter to me.

There’s so much happening in California right now – entrepreneurs and creative thinkers of every stripe are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. As a state, we are in the middle of important and exhilarating conversations about our future. I want your take on it all!

While you’re there, check out my other magazines, like Marriage Equality and Citizenville. And as always, you can join me on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ to stay connected.
Looking forward to your feedback.